100,000 + 1 things you never new about neo

Superfamifreak said:

If the world was to end, only Neo joysticks would survive, they're THAT tough!!!

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As long as they are kept away from a Metal Slug.

Nightmare Tony said:

Kernow, Forever did remmeber right. If you have a schematic to any Neo geo system, it will have Alpha Denshi on it, along with their head wildman, Eiji Fukatsu. The system he actually did as a full board previously, first starting with a game called Battlefield (renamed to Time Soldiers). Romstar had the board redone also as Sky Soldiers and Gold Medalist. Sky Adventure also used the same system.

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The Alpha68k (name from MAME) is more than likely an early version of the Neo Geo hardware. This can be verified by looking at the games in MAME. Alpha68k games are 256x224 using 2048 colors. The Neo Geo is 320x224 using 4096 colors.

The flip bit for the sprites is bit 0 and 1 for Neo Geo, and bits 15 and 16 for the Alpha68k system. (Taken right from the MAME source).

Nightmare Tony said:

As a general rule, graphic systems of the time used a background graphics, text and sprite graphics. Eiji instead used the sprites as tiles for the background, making programming and circuit design a tad simpler.

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I've always wondered why they didn't have a tilemap like 99.99% of the other hardware of the time.
I'm not sure about making programming easier (more flexible maybe), but the circuit design make sense.

J0e Musashi said:

If you put more than one of the same cart in a multislot it will only boot the first one.

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I wonder if one of the bootleg KOF would have the same problem (assuming they didn't change the NGH number in the header)?

MKL said:

"correct" you say? When it comes to linguistic matters being normative often leads to misguided conclusions...
Considering it's a name of Indo-European origin (ultimately going back to Old Greek), I fail to see how some cats belonging to a totally different linguistic family and with a manifestly poor command of English (or any other I.-E. languages for that matter) are supposed to establish the 'correct' pronunciation of those I.-E. words for us native Indo-European speakers.
The obvious truth is that since the lexemes "Neo" and "Geo" are independently found in a variety of Indo-European languages (Italian, German, English, French, etc.) their pronunciation will be language-specific, i.e. different in the different languages. Therefore, the upshot is that there can be no universal pronunciation of "Neo Geo": the Italian, German, English, French (etc.) ones all have reason to exist.

On the other hand, one might ask whether the alleged Japanese pronunciation has real linguistic grounds or simply originated from the ignorance of the speakers (e.g. note how Italians pronounce "X-Files"). For instance, one should check whether or not the lexemes "Neo" and "Geo" are present, as borrowings, in Japanese (I mean quite apart from the SNK system) and whether or not they have the pronunciation you suggested above. This means that you'd also have to adduce a phonetic rationale underlying the different pronunciation of "-e-" in the two words by Japanese speakers.
Needless to say, if you come up with a motivation like "they made it, hence their pronuciation must be the correct one" don't expect me to find it satisfactory...

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You MADE me look.. wtf is a Sacher torte. Here, https://shop.sacher.com/sacher/SacherShop/index.jsp NICE!! Now.. what'dya say about tha games?

cdoty said:

As long as they are kept away from a Metal Slug.

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Bullshit, it seems you have forgotten Aero Fighters and the Arm Wrestling from Fatal Fury.

Clear Paper said:

Well... a little on topic, there's a little orange pot near the Sony CXA1145 video encoder chip that will allow you to fiddle with the bleed.

Anyone seen a Pop N Bounce running with a trackwheel?

oh hum...

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Yeah I saw that when I wasn't to familiar with all the Neo Library, so I wasn't aware that it was in fact a neo game. I do remember thinking the game was like a Bust-a-Move, but better. I love trackball games!!

Cdoty: Programming-wise, it shouldnt make a difference. Circuit wise, it made things a tad easier and cheaper to make, as cost is paramount in design. The sprite only background was also useful as when using the CHAIN command, you could just set a single sprite, use the command to chain all the rest of the background sprites to that one and scroll the background by just controlling that single sprite.

http://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/Featured_Developer_1.cfm
And for giggles, last job I was developing a new hardware platform which made some innovative 65C134 usage. I was using the 65C134 in the design for the Neo Geo ticket redemption add-on, by the way.

One future plan I have with this design involves an arcade and home system. The biggest feature about the circuit design I have planned is dynamic allocation of resources to the point where I can design in a sprite OR a polygon hardware engine while using the exact same schematic. I figure 2-3 years to it. Also, I lost about 30 pounds since that picture, by the way.

Biggest taker of free time these days, composing with a VERY huge name in music....
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0765459/


Kernow: thanks on the thumbs up in here. We had so much fun back then. Today and the future are fun also.... If you ever contact Chad, let him know I finally got the farm I've been wanting to get all those years....

Thanks great tip didnt know that, though I know alot of neo stuff was ported to psx and other systems

did you guys know that Ninja Masters for AES is not censored?
I have a us deck and game has blood and everything(no uni bios installed) pretty cool actually ^^

Princess-Isabel said:

did you guys know that Ninja Masters for AES is not censored?
I have a us deck and game has blood and everything(no uni bios installed) pretty cool actually ^^

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I'm sure I've noticed it before and wasn't surprised, since censorship on the AES doesn't follow any hard-and-fast rule, especially if the game isn't from SNK. There are really only a few givens: Samurai Shodown and Metal Slug will have white blood, and The Last Blade games will follow most of the same rules as Samurai. Other than that, the few differences on other games are small and scattered.

cdoty said:

The Alpha68k (name from MAME) is more than likely an early version of the Neo Geo hardware. This can be verified by looking at the games in MAME. Alpha68k games are 256x224 using 2048 colors. The Neo Geo is 320x224 using 4096 colors.

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I'm now really curious about all of this. It would be interesting to find out the connection between the Alpha68k system and the Neo Geo.

From what I can gather the Alpha68k, was used by Alpha Denshi as early at 1987, and SNK in 1988. SNK also started using the SNK68k system is 1988. The systems components and memory map are very close in design. Then there's the Beast Busters hardware, which isn't close to either, but does have the scaled sprites. Interesting is that the hardware components of the Neo Geo (12 Mhz 68000 4 Mhz Z80 YM2610 sound chip) more closely match the Beast Busters hardware than any other. There is almost no connection between this board and any of the others, though.

This would lead me to beileve that either SNK licensed or copied the Alpha68k board design. If they copied it, the may have gone crawling back for a new board in 1989. My guess is this new board was the Neo Geo board, which incorporated the sprite scalling idea from Beast Busters. And, maybe the left over components from the Beast Busters line was used for the Neo Geo.

It would be interesting to hear what drove the Neo Geo to a cartridge format?

SNK never designed the Neo Geo hardware system. Eiji Fukatsu himself designed it as an improved version of his 68K system. It features the essential sprite tiling system compressed into 3 chips, a scalar table in ROM function and a redone sound system as well as cartridge interface.

Nightmare Tony said:

SNK never designed the Neo Geo hardware system. Eiji Fukatsu himself designed it as an improved version of his 68K system. It features the essential sprite tiling system compressed into 3 chips, a scalar table in ROM function and a redone sound system as well as cartridge interface.

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Agree with Wasabi - your info is the best. It's really nice that you still remember this stuff fondly, as I'm sure many of the others just thought of it as a regular job or forget about it.

Blush. Thanks there.

I had worked at Romstar previously, we had connectes with SNK. Back when the SNK home division was first started, Mr. Yasuki had sent me over to help solve some video output issues with the TV interface which was causing FCC failure problems. The solve was slightly detuning the crystal and the extra grounding wires to the crystal and area.

Romstar had moved up North as Capcom was part owner and had it decided, and it was so. I was born and grew up in the LA area and did not want to move. It was a sad time, there were many tears. I wrote a sad poem about it all in rememberance. I will post it.

Mr. Yasuki pulled strings and got me into SNK which was in a bigger building doing arcade. At Romstar, we had licensed the 1 slot system for sale as a conversion kit. I still remember the first 10,000 boards came in, a HUGE stack of boxes, maybe 40 feet deep, 10 feet tall, 10-20 feet wide. Took up a LOT of the warehouse.

Romstar was quite mellow and an adventure. Had it stayed, I would have had my first inhouse 100% programmed game within a year, I was helping develop the Terra 2 arcade system there. It was 286 based with CPLD graphic chip systems to allow the graphicvs path to be revised. I do have the board layout somewhere, I will have to post it someday. The main board was designed by Doug Hughes, who designed the hardware system used by Taito for the game Qix (an entirely American game with no Japanes programming or design whatsoever).

SNK seemed tougher at first but I got the rhythmn. We all had a lot of fun and creativity ran well. For breaks, we all competed in darts and Thrash Rally 2 times a day. I had designed a steering wheel control panel and pedal and it kept me int he race since I usually suck at games, and I Was able to keep up. The Thrash contests were on 4 cabinets, and we were SAVAGE players. Plenty of smack talk aqnd competition.

I did the arcade repairs, answered phones and tech department things. I also did design work and odd things.

SNK went up north due to the Neo Print, I got a job as a distributor. Ended up hating that job since it became a Dilbert cartoon come to life. Ironically, the home division guy at SNK is working there at that same distributor right now.

My present job is engineering, doing circuit board design of phone and security system entry ways. VERY fun job.

Anyhoo, that is why I still remember my neo tech stuph. But yup, it was a job that stood out. Lots of fun. The only reason I give it a 2-3% less than Romstar and present job, it seemed a tiny bit stiff at first, but once I got the hang and rhythmn, it all worked out. Personal wise, we were great, did Christmas walks together, partied together. Was very much a family.

As a side home project, I am programming a pinball. Had not touched it in ages since I am also doing a huge movie soundtrack. Got way the heck too many projects....

But yup, love this site, and to quote Tommy our supervisor, if I dont have an answer, at least I have an opinion And feel free to hit me up techwise.

Awesome stories... I think you should just post other stories like that one. Anything you remember. I love reading your stuff, as I'm sure most everybody else who has kept track of this thread does.

k, am blushing furiously now.

but for one funny story, I spent a week up north at Doug's place during first design and programming of Terra 2. That is where I learned a VERY important lesson, do NOT EVER bet money on the outcome of a pinball game, ESPECIALLY when you are betting against the board hardware designer! (system 4 or old one used on Flash by Williams). Lost 50 bucks that night.

Though I did beat the heck out of the programmer for the 2600 version of Reactor, a longtime friend.

Latest toy, building a Theremin for the movie soundtrack. More festivities in life

good read Tony, keep it up.

Before I forget, if you are local to Riverside county, feel free to pm me to drop on over and say hi, hang out for dinner or something. I dont have Neo Geo equipment set up, but will show off what I can including a one of a kind arcade game I still have to get the time to MAME (the infamous Cybertank)...

Common knowledge I think, but didn't see it posted;

....other than the blood removal of certain SNK games at the time, in the King Of Fighters for the US Neo-Geo CD, Mai's boobies do not bouncy-bouncy. However, this "feature" was accessible with a code which was at the high score screen, press A and D on controller 1 simultaneously as you press B and C on controller 2, this code also made the blood appear.

Another tidbit, the Japanese pop-idol Ayumi Hamasaki (Who was a model then) was in the commercial for Art of Fighting 2 in Japan. Vids below;

http://youtube.com/watch?v=OOX1UrONQ5Y

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oTlzZk2y_oA&feature=related (LULZ)

Moving on... In the U.S., the King Of Fighters '95 was ported to the PlayStation but the superior (due to ram cart) Sega Saturn version was not. However, there was a PAL port of KOF '95 that was released by none other than Sega themselves. Though for some reason KOF '95 was the only one in the series to make it to this region.

Dandy-J said:

Moving on... In the U.S., the King Of Fighters '95 was ported to the PlayStation but the superior (due to ram cart) Sega Saturn version was not. However, there was a PAL port of KOF '95 that was released by none other than Sega themselves. Though for some reason KOF '95 was the only one in the series to make it to this region.

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This is a common mistake. The cart included with KOF 95 for the Saturn was a proprietary ROM cart. It contained actual game data that was specific to KOF 95.

Kiken said:

This is a common mistake. The cart included with KOF 95 for the Saturn was a proprietary ROM cart. It contained actual game data that was specific to KOF 95.

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What does this have to do with my post about the PAL version?

Dandy-J said:

What does this have to do with my post about the PAL version?

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Don't mind him he just likes to correct people left and right although he isn't 100% most of the time.

The KOF 95 cart is propietary to the game only, but it does have ram anyway so you are not mistaken by calling it a ram cart.

Dandy-J said:

....other than the blood removal of certain SNK games at the time, in the King Of Fighters for the US Neo-Geo CD, Mai's boobies do not bouncy-bouncy. However, this "feature" was accessible with a code which was at the high score screen, press A and D on controller 1 simultaneously as you press B and C on controller 2, this code also made the blood appear.

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This trick also worked on a US/ Euro homecart system!

On the show Nick Arcade, they had a last resort machine, But it wasn't an mvs.

Mrandersonjr said:

On the show Nick Arcade, they had a last resort machine, But it wasn't an mvs.

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Oh man,you just made me go back and check youtube for that show! It looks to me,based on the controllers they used,that maybe the Neo Geo games were AES built into their custom cabs?